Eimert, Herbert
Epitaph Fur Aikichi Kuboyama/sechs Studien
Herbert Eimert was a German music renaissance man, with his expertise ranging from theory to composition, editing, radio production, and criticism. He wrote numerous books on music theory, worked for years at the British occupational forces run Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk. It was there in 1951 that he established a studio for electronic music that he ran until 1961, which hosted recordings from Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Cardew, among others. This brilliant work begins on side A with 'Epitaph Fur Aikichi Kuboyama', a brilliant piece of voice and electronics dedicated to a Japanese fishing boat radioman, who lost his life from complications related to radiation poisoning in 1954, after the ship he worked on was contaminated from fallout after the USA's nuclear testing at Bikini atoll. In addition to being a brilliant piece of electronic musique concrete, it is a damning indictment of nuclear warfare, as prescient now as it was during The Cold War. Side B is made up of six studies in electronic music, showcasing Eimert's talents which are as impressive as his more famous contemporaries. Essential early electronic music.